As a consequence didn't have a very productive day.

Was going to go to bed early, but The Sound of Music was on after Glee, and well it had to be watched.. oops..

Still, got lots of pieces sorted for the jigsaw.  Probably nearly half way through sorting ...

Tonight I started freaking out about how much I have to do in the next little while.  

So naturally I started the next 6000-piece section of the 24000 piece jigsaw.  

Then I sat down and organised the coming months in general terms, breaking things up into manageable chunks.

But for now, bed time!  Goodnight!

Went and saw Hugo tonight.

Unfortunately for me I heard too many people say how good it was.  Because whenever people do that I start to expect too much.  And then I enjoy it less.

Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely film, it's just it got over hyped in my brain and I was expecting miracles.  Doh.

We saw it in 3D as recommended.  And it was nicely done.  But really.  3D?  Meh.  I'm still not convinced, even by a movie that's supposed to be one of the better ones.

So anyway.

Had a light dinner at Gus' beforehand.  

Vegetarian nachos for the sweetie

And "Miti paigani" for me.  Not really sure what I was expecting, but it really wasn't this.  Oh well.

I was intrigued by Crispy lamb in shantung sauce, which turned out to be delicious!

And we also had Drunken chicken with ginger and shallot sauce, which was lovely and tender but didn't have the same flavour punch as the lamb.

Then home, did some photo sorting, and this jigsaw of Yokohama Bay Bridge in an hour and a quarter:

Also did some thinking about and planning for my next trip.  Getting excited :)

Then did our food shopping at the markets.

Not much this arvo, just on the computer.

Did a pork roast and Josh and Ally came over for dinner and it was a very pleasant little dinner party.  Pork was super awesome, good veggies, and dessert was some creme brulees we got from Knead this morning.  Yum yum yum :)  And a good excuse to trot out the nice dinnerware :)

The sweetie cooked kangaroo for dinner.

Tonight he cooked a Japanese curry (sort of).

Here's a couple of photos of sunflowers.

* You think it's normal to have a leader called Julia. 

* You've made a bong out of your garden hose rather than use it for something illegal such as watering the garden. 

* You understand that the phrase 'a group of women wearing black thongs' refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds. 

* You pronounce Melbourne as 'Mel-bin'. 

* You believe the 'l' in the word 'Australia' is optional. 

* You can translate: 'Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas.' 

* You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep. 

* You call your best friend 'a total bastard' but someone you really, truly despise is just 'a bit of a bastard'. 

* You think 'Woolloomooloo' is a perfectly reasonable name for a place. 

* You're secretly proud of our killer wildlife. 

* You believe it makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that's twice as big as its $2 coin. 

* You understand that 'Wagga Wagga' can be abbreviated to 'Wagga' but 'Woy Woy' can't be called 'Woy'. 

* You believe that cooked-down axle grease makes a good breakfast spread. You've also squeezed it through Vita Wheats to make little Vegemite worms. 

* You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis. 

* Beetroot with your Hamburger... Of course. 

* You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels' song 'Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again' 

And "Living next door to Alice". 

* You believe that the confectionery known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year. 

* You wear ugg boots outside the house. 

* You believe that every important discovery in the world was made by an Australian but then sold off for a pittance. 

* You believe that the more you shorten someone's name the more you like them. 

* Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language. 

* You understand that 'excuse me' can sound rude,

While 'scuse me' is always polite. 

* You know what it's like to swallow a fly, on occasion via your nose. 

* You know it's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle and a seat belt buckle becomes a pretty good branding iron. 

* Your biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules for beach cricket. 

* You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call 'Anzac cookies'. 

* You still think of Kylie as 'that girl off Neighbours'. 

* When working on a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer. 

* You know how to abbreviate every word, all of which usually end in -o: arvo, combo, garbo, kero, lezzo, metho, milko, muso, rego, servo, smoko, speedo, righto, goodo etc. 

* You know that there is a universal place called "woop woop" located in the middle of nowhere...no matter where you actually are. 

* You know that none of us actually drink Fosters beer, because it tastes like piss. But we let the world think we do. Because we can. 

* You have some time in your life slept with Aeroguard on in the summer. Maybe even as perfume. 

* You've only ever used the words - tops, ripper, sick, mad, rad, sweet 

- to mean good. And then you place 'bloody' in front of it when you really mean it. 

* You know that the barbecue is a political arena; the person holding the tongs is always the boss and usually a man. And the women make the Salad. 

* You say 'no worries' quite often, whether you realise it or not. 

* You understand what no wucking furries means. 

* You've drank your tea/coffee/milo through a Tim Tam. 

* You own a Bond's chesty. In several different colours. 

* You know that some people pronounce Australia like "Straya" and that's ok. 

* And you will immediately forward this list to other Australians, here and overseas, realising that only they will understand.

Happy invasion day ..

Three people died in that car :(:(  I'll be curious to know what happened.  Did the driver of the truck fall asleep momentarily?  Did he swerve to avoid something and lose control?  Was there any sort of mechanical fault?

But the most unsettling thing for me personally - my brother was just minutes behind this.  It could have been him under that truck...

I had this realisation that the thing I wanted to do most today was documentation.  Maybe because everything else on my todo list was less pleasurable heh ;)  Maybe it's because I realised that out of the eighteen large "client" projects I've worked on since I started there, seven of them are current and I'm working on them at the moment.  That's enough to make my head spin just thinking about it!

Documentation is something I can do quietly by myself, don't have to talk to useless vendors, don't have to talk to other people (except to ask the odd question), I can just *do it* and actually achieve something at the end of the day.

Just for fun, here's the time lapse I put together of the jigsaw I did yesterday...

Then the sweetie and I went into town to see Arietty.

What a delightful movie!!

Sweet, sad, and stunningly animated.

The sweetie wants to move into Sho's family's house heh.

So yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it.

We saw it in Japanese with English subtitles.  Which is at least one good thing about the Dodgy Dendy.

So after that we grabbed some lunch in the food court, then went and did out food shopping.  I debated buying some "Australia" but they only had big jars, and we'd *never* get through it.  So just documented them instead.

After putting away the shopping, we brought up Stu's new chair.  Well, brand new second hand.  But he got a pretty sweet deal (the person he bought it off had recently spent like $380 getting it reupholstered (Stu paid ~$100) and the dude's father in law wasn't too happy that he was getting so little for it).  This is not its final home (although I do like it where it is - I can sit and watch my screen saver from it :) )

Then I sat down to do a 1000 piece jigsaw.  It took about three and a half hours.  Probably the fastest I've ever done a 1000 piece jigsaw.  And because it promised to be so easy, I took a timelapse of it.  Which I might put together tomorrow.

Then spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house.  Oops.  Finished up like a quarter of an hour before people started turning up.

So yeah, four Davids, a Neil and a Simon came.  We started off by playing some rounds of Buzz until everyone arrived.  Then DC arrived with pizzas, and we watched The Big Lebowski, followed by Blazing Saddles.  I struggled to keep awake through Blazing Saddles ;)   My favourite part was when they zoomed out of the fight scene to show the Warner Bros backlot.  Very cool :)

Then most people went home, but Doc and Windy stayed for a bit of Singstar (and I set a couple of high scores for Poison and Heaven is a Place on Earth :) ).  Slightly late night.  Oops.

Then we walked up to Jamo to meet the sweetie for dinner at The Dumpling Inn.  We couldn't get a seat immediately so sat by the fish tank feeling slightly sad for the fishies.

And then Neil asked: "Is there a blog out there for the oldest magazines in waiting rooms?"

... 1997 ?!??

We ordered the traditional Shredded Beef Peking Style, crunchy and awesome as always.

Three cups wine chicken in hot pot, which was *amazing*, I really loved this (even burnt my tongue on it trying to eat it faster!).  Must have been all that hoisin sauce :)

And braised scallops with ginger and shallot sauce.  The scallops were melt-in-your-mouth good!

And finished up with fried ice cream

It was pouring with rain from the storm, so we drove Neil home, but didn't do our shopping as planned.  Oh well.

Meanwhile, the cockatoos were making a racket this morning, so while I had the camera out to photograph the sunflowers, I took a bunch of photos of the birds.

ok so yeah.  Might have gone slightly overboard :):):)

So yeah, War of the Worlds.  A little odd.  Quite anticlimactic at the end.  And in answer to my question, it seems you never do find out the dude's name.  In fact I think the only named characters are the women his brother meets (oh and the astronomer at the beginning).  At one point he's talking about some artillery or something being the most powerful weaponry ever seen.  And I'm like "Is that all?" .. and then I remember this was written before both World Wars! heh

I'm going to see if I can get out to Woking next time I'm in London...